


Animosity and what makes a human being

by knightinpinkunderwear



Series: I told you that I don't have a soul [9]
Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: 13 stitches, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Blood and Gore, Bombs, Brain Surgery, Canon-Typical Violence, Don't copy to another site, Episode Tag, Episode: s05e06 13 Stitches, Gen, Gore, Gun Violence, Hallucinations, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Mind Control, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Not Canon Compliant, Pain, Past Abuse, Past Child Abuse, S5e06: 13 Stitches, Season/Series 05, Stitches, Suicide, Surgery, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-07-05
Packaged: 2020-01-23 08:12:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18545791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knightinpinkunderwear/pseuds/knightinpinkunderwear
Summary: Ed knew that Jim wasn't his friend a long time ago. But it hurts to be reminded that the man couldn't think of him as even a human being for longer than a minute at a time. No, he was a criminal, and not one that was a friend or ex-lover, so he was sub-human, deserved the pain and misfortune he was served.Diverges from s5e06: 13 Stitches





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> There is an explicit suicide scene and suicidal thoughts. Please Leave if you don't think you can healthily ingest such media. I don't want to trigger anyone.

**> Jim<**

"Did I do anything?" He only sounded worried because of Haven. Jim knew it wasn't like him to do something like that, but killing a few civilians at a time? Killing officers and detectives and security guards? That was just Nygma's sort of thing. 

"You tried to kill me,"

"Oh," the word came out like a sigh, "That's it?" The son of a bitch sounded relieved, though Jim knew his life meant little to the serial murderer. Brown eyes scanned him and their surroundings, paying little mind to his duct tape bonds. His gaze stopped on Jim's neck. The gash from where a bullet had scraped by, hot and burnt in some places and bleeding. "You're _hurt_!" With still taped hands Nygma reached towards him, eyes soft with false concern. Jim slapped the hands away and Nygma didn't protest. 

Nygma helps when Eduardo shows up at the Siren's, only for revenge. Only so that they knew not to try to make him do things, that he did what he wanted with no care for the law or other people. 

He bitches and whines through the surgery. Lucius gives him a few twitches for that, the words from Nygma's mouth are gibberish, and this small humiliation helps to get back from all the lives Nygma has ended, if only a tiny bit. 

Jim doesn't care until he sees Nygma's body. It's still flushed and warm. There's a gun in his hand and the back of his head is splattered across the wall. Blood, brain matter, bits of skull and unkempt hair. He'd ate a bullet. 

Harvey is crouched next to the fresh corpse. He looks like he's gonna be sick. 

Jim can't decide if he's more angry that he might have been able to stop this, all of it, years ago with a socially awkward and strange forensic scientist. Or if he's angry that Nygma took the easy way out, dying over spending years in Arkham where he belonged. 

Jim eventually decided that he was angry that Nygma had said one truth that stuck with him, Jim had never been his friend. 

 

**> E¿war¿<**

Ed hadn't meant to talk like trying to kill Jim wasn't a big deal, but...Ed had tried to before. And between the attempted murder of one and the slaughter of hundreds? The fact that all he was used for was an attempt on Jim's life was kind of a relief. 

"You're _hurt_!" There was a cut on his neck, on the side about halfway down the column of his throat. It looked bad enough to need stitches, there was a solid line of blood slowly seeping from it, the collar of his almost white shirt stained. Without proper laundering facilities the stain would persist. Jim smacked away his hands. His wrists were bound in duct tape, there was also some around his knees and some binding his upper arms to his torso. 

He offers to patch Jim up when they reach the Siren's, Jim refused with clear distrust. He refused the same offer from Barbara. And they start talking about the baby. So Ed flees to grab a first aid kit from the kitchen. 

There's blood on his hands. He washes them. They're still bloody. He wipes them on a towel. They're still bloody, they're still bloody and dripping. 

His hands are shaking. They're still bloody. 

His head still hurts. Itches. Like it wants to be separate again, the way Professor Strange did it. 

He can't move. He can't _breathe_. And his hands are still bloody. 

He hears a commotion. The Military man Jim said was controlling him. 

The first aid kit sat forgotten, Ed grabbed a butcher's knife and marched out. 

He wants the chip out, there's no telling when it will regain function. But he doesn't want to put his brain in someone else's hands. Not so soon after Strange...

He knows that Lucius isn't qualified to do this, but he's a fugitive from the only place there is doctors. Lucius is calm and collected, it helps ease his nerves a little.   

He wants to cry when Lucius bumped his speech center the second time. He knew it was deliberate. Barbara and Alfred Pennyworth laugh. He feels so small. So helpless. 

His mind isn't his anymore.  

He doesn't like the bomb diversion. He doesn't like that he has the "bomb." He doesn't like that he has to pretend he wants to blow up a building full of people, old co-workers and civilians, innocent people, maybe even children. 

Harvey is behind bars when he gets there, there's bodies on the ground. Most officers are in the holding cells. 

He almost sobs when Harvey shouted his first jeer. 

_"Is three hundred innocent people not enough?"_

He feels like a pawn in this plan rather than a part of it. It goes off with almost no hitch. Except Harvey understands the riddle.

He gets shot. Two, three times. The impact pushes him back onto the floor. It doesn't penetrate the bomb suit. But it hurts.

One of the military guys approaches him, and the sleep gas starts up in the nick of time. 

He hopes someone will explain, clear his name. Or at least that someone would believe that he _wouldn't_ do something like that.

But they all think the worst of him. 

Especially Jim. He was the first to believe it. It only took him two seconds. 

And even throughout the rest of it, only Lucius asked if he was alright. 

Lucius was the only one who seemed to understand that maybe being used to kill hundreds of innocent people _and children_ would hurt him. 

But Lucius still purposely manipulated his brain for the amusement of others.

Jim never bothered to check by with him and Barbara, he was too absorbed into following Lee. 

Ed knew whatever awful twisted manipulation he had with Lee was gone. She stabbed him, and he stabbed back. There was no way they could be friends again. 

Oswald...He tried to turn him over at the first chance he got. 

And Jim would never be his friend. It was debatable if Jim even considered him worth human decency. 

Was he a human being to anyone else? 

No, to Jim he was a criminal, and not one that was a friend or ex-lover, so he was sub-human, deserved the pain and misfortune he was served.

No, to Lee he'd been her gross misogynistic pawn. 

No, to Barbara he was an annoyance. 

No, to Harvey he was a sick freak. 

No, to Oswald he was a betrayor, not worth investing in or trying to stay in touch. He was an object of past affections, that's all. 

No, to Lucius he was a menace, interrupting his day and only known to cause harm. 

No, to himself he was the controlled, the manipulated. His mind was the only thing that hadn't been _used_ by someone else. 

He was too passive. The city, life itself throwing pain and abuse at him year after year. 

And there was blood on his hands. 

Ed stood, Barbara had left a while ago. He pocketed a handgun on his way. A push through the door and he was in the bathroom. From these very mirrors what was now the Riddler (now him?) used to scream and laugh and jeer. 

The bathroom is empty, thank goodness. 

He washes his hands in the sink. And they were still bloody. 

Screams he'd never heard echoed in his head, too much, too much, too much noise, too much death, too much blood.

The blood it was on his hands again, and it wouldn't leave. No matter how hard he scrubbed them. 

They burned, burned with the blood. 

His throat was tight. 

Too passive. 

Years of pain, years of abuse, years of being _used_. 

The gun is solid in his hand. It's cold and hard and real. 

Just what he needs. 

His brain wasn't his anymore.

Like his body, stolen in youth. Marred with so many marks and bruises.

Nothing of himself was his anymore. 

But there was one thing. One thing he could _make_ his. 

You couldn't puppeteer a brainless body. 

You couldn't hurt a brainless body. 

And the screaming would stop. Haven would stop echoing in his head. 

His hands were sticky with the blood. 

The barrel was cold against his lips.

All he could think was; _why hadn't he done this sooner?_

Edward pulled the trigger. 

 

**> Harvey<**

 

Lucius is the one who explains it to him. The chip in the brain, the puppeteering, two brain surgeries. After all that, Nygma ought to feel like total crap.

The things Harvey'd said to him when he'd thought that briefcase was a bomb... 

He should probably apologize. Nygma wasn't a good fella but he wasn't a monster. Harvey was once again sure of that. 

And it no doubt was playing with the guy that someone had made him do something like he was a puppet. 

Harvey knew it sucked when Tetch did that hypnotism thing, it made you feel like you couldn't control anything. 

Not even your own body. 

Nygma didn't deserve that, even if he was a murderer and cop-killer. 

 

_**BANG!** _

 

The bathroom. The men's bathroom. 

Harvey was the first one in, Lucius on his tail. 

It was Nygma. 

On the tile floor. 

In the dim light. 

The back of his head was missing. Well, not missing. Bits of it were on the wall, and bits of it on the floor. 

The gun was in his hand and his mouth was still a little open. 

He'd ate a bullet. 

Harvey thought that Nygma looked a little too small on that floor, a little too helpless, a little too alone. 

Nygma killed himself. 

_He could have done it years ago._

Back when he was a bright-eyed intern, or back when he was consistently fascinated by gruesome crime scenes, and all too happy to share riddles instead of straight answers. 

Harvey doesn't know why Ed had kept living, the GCPD had never welcomed him. 

Ed really should have gotten help. Harvey just wished he hadn't been so cruel when he'd said that those few years ago. 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ouch. This is both a summary and a warning.

**> Lucius<**

There's never a time when coming face to face with a body that he'd seen alive earlier that day or week didn't hurt. It hurt worse for sudden ends. It hurt worse for suicides. it hurt worse for people you'd tried to help. 

It hurt to find a person who was hurting and didn't want to live anymore. 

It hurt when they went through with it. 

And no matter what, Lucius found some part of him always felt at least a little responsible for the tragedy. 

Not directly. 

But he often felt that there was something more he could have done to prevent this. 

Regrets. 

He shouldn't have messed with Edward's brain. He had known the man was emotionally unstable. He had known that he'd already been grossly abused. That function over his own body had been taken from him. 

And Lucius did it too. When the man had quite literally put his life and mind in his hands. 

Lucius abused that trust.

Lucius had made him do something for the amusement of others after being told not to.

Lucius could have helped maybe, before all of this. When Nygma was still a GCPD employee harboring two fugitives and their plot to kill Mayor Galavan. When he'd seemed so easy to reach out to, so eager to please. 

Or when he'd first met "the riddler" in his car at gunpoint. When Nygma was so confused and hurting and clung to his every word like it would help him

The burn in his throat felt like some sort of strong alcohol, but it did nothing to wash away the pain and guilt. 

The burn stays, and another one builds, just under the surface of his eyes. 

And an ache sets up shop in his chest and head. 

He could have helped. 

He should have been more careful. 

It's so hard to tell how much someone is hurting, and how close they are to the edge. And every time he sees it, the pain in another's eyes, he just wants to take it. 

And it's stupid, and childish, to think he could shoulder the pain of others, childish to _want_ that. 

It's selfish too. Because maybe, maybe, if he takes the pain of enough people, he will feel like he has earned his existence on earth. 

And he feels guilty for that too, for making others' pain about his own, but he can't help it. 

And it _hurts._

 

**> Lee<**

The last time she had seen Ed close up was when she stabbed him. Though, she wasn't sure he was Ed then. 

She didn't even know if he was Ed now-well, not now. Now he wasn't anything. 

Now, bits and pieces of his consciousness were splattered across the dingy tiles of the men's bathroom at the precinct. 

It felt a lifetime ago that they'd both worked here, together. 

Or robbing banks together. 

She should have known he wasn't himself, no part of Ed she'd ever dealt with before had been so misogynistic. He'd been acting out, maybe crying for help, for someone to notice he wasn't himself. 

It didn't excuse anything he said or did. 

It didn't excuse his attempts to control her. 

It didn't excuse him planning to kill her. 

But it also didn't excuse her making the first move. 

Using that week hypermasculine persona to manipulate him. 

It didn't excuse her shoving the knife quite so far into his chest. (They had both died, she knew that.)

(She remembered hearing him choke on his last breath next to her.)

(She remembered dying alone, next to the corpse of the man she killed and that killed her.)

It had been awful then. 

But it was worse now. 

Now, there was no hope. No chance of resurrection. 

They'd both had the same chips in their heads. 

Edward knew what they did to him. He was awake.

According to his little pocket recorder he'd had blackouts. He knew he was losing time and doing things. 

And as horribly creepy and skin crawling Lee felt, she somehow knew that they hadn't used her like that. 

Other than one attack on Jim, she was sure they hadn't made her do anything.

They didn't make her murder 300+ refugees, children included. 

They hadn't taken her autonomy to make her do anything that strongly against her morals. 

No one had made her sit still and suffer through an open skull brain surgery with no local anesthetics or a lack of properly cleaned tools. 

No one stapled her skull together. No one hurt her quite like that. 

And worst of all, people around her had sympathy, they cared and wanted to help her. And they ignored that a man killed himself a room away from most of them. 

Jim didn't even seem to believe that Edward didn't want to kill Haven. 

It was disgusting. At least Harvey and Lucius seemed to agree with her. 

 

 

**> Oswald<**

The news comes at what he thinks is 5 in the evening. News that Edward, the human, _his friend_ , is dead and there's no bringing him back. 

If that wasn't enough cruelty on its own. Ed killed himself. 

And all he can remember is the red of his eyes and the horribly dark bags under them. All he can remember is the pain and confusion written so plainly on his face. 

All Oswald can remember is that he had Ed here, in an arm's reach in this room only yesterday. 

All Oswald can think of is how it _hurts_ and how he _maybe_ could have and _should have_ stopped Ed, kept him safe from James Fucking Gordon and that bastard military friend of his. 

In the morgue, it's miserable and cruel. 

Ed's face holds no peace this time. Not like when his irresponsible fling Lee had stabbed him. 

Instead, he looks small. . . and alone. 

His hand doesn't feel like a human limb anymore. It's too cold, too rigid, too heavy. 

And Oswald _understands_ the horror he'd put Ed through those years ago with Isabella. And he understands why Ed could never seem to trust him after that. 

And now, he finally understands the burden his father claimed to carry. 

He'd had one true love, and he didn't run. 

And now it was gone. 

A candle too close to the fireplace, a mess of melted wax on the floor, no way to bring it back. 

And if he didn't loathe Hugo Strange before this. . . well, it was safe to say the man would surely meet his end soon, he and every other bastard who had something to do with that chip in his brain. 

Edward cries when he returns to City Hall. The dog sits with him, and his dark brown eyes are sad too. 

It's stupid to think the dog understands what's going on, but he believes that Edward knows that something happened, he was an intelligent creature after all. 

And that's when it all comes out. Tears. 

He sobs and clutches the only Edward he has left, it's loud and ugly. 

His nose runs and his throat burns. His eyes sting as tears slip down his face. He hasn't cried like this since his mother passed. (He still doesn't quite remember how he grieved for his father, the conditioning had made some things blurry.) 

And he's angry. He wants to be angry. 

Because the only thing left in this world that he loves is a _dog_. 

And who knows how long until whatever cruel deity decides that even that is more than he deserves?

How long until he truly has nothing?

It feels like it now. 

And he wonders, _is this how Ed felt?_

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yea...I may or may not be projecting onto Lucius again. 
> 
> This is the last part. I hope you found this emotional torture to your liking, and if it was not enough to drown you in sorrows and angst I suggest the series aptly named "I told you that I don't have a soul"

**Author's Note:**

> I've been thinking about This for awhile.


End file.
